Mapping our journey from China to Mecca

Rolling out the scroll, the first image is a map. Look at the division of space and sense of scale this work presents. The map displays land and sea routes from the Qing empire to Mecca. Do you recognize the starting point and the final destination?

These routes take us along Hajj (pilgrimage). Hajj is one of Islam's five pillars, the must-do's the others are:shahada (profession of faith), salat (prayer), zakat (almsgiving) and sawm (fasting). Traveling across Asia by foot or boat was expensive and time consuming, a true privilege to undertake. Often friends would be gone for years, or simply never return. Take time to look at the mountains across this landscape and the vastness of the oceans in between, these are visual clues for us to understand the enormity of Hajj.

As the reader, your relation as a Muslim living under Qing rule with “world Islam” has been discussed in your community since the publishing of the 18th-century Han Kitab. This book places Islam within a Confucian Chinese frame. The importance of Hajj to allow the reader to grow closer with faith is particularly important to those living in China. The scroll’s illustrative and narrative power lies in helping the reader to conjure a self-reflective “psychological” Hajj through your mind’s eye. For some, as real as the act itself. Walking through this map to complete a version of Hajj demonstrates your faith.

After the 1856 Panthay rebellion, where ethno-religious tensions reached boiling point between Qing and Muslim factions to remain connected with Mecca through this scroll’s trans-Asian community grew in importance. Hajj is both a right of passage and an act of survival. By connecting with “world-Islam’s” ummah you are equally devout as all other Muslims.

The landscape and terrain associated with Hajj, as well as home are what the scroll goes on to explore next.